


With Understanding: Sam

by apokteino



Series: With Understanding [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Discussion of Kidnapping, Discussion of rape/non-con elements, F/M, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kidnapping, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Watching it all from heaven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 03:43:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15330990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apokteino/pseuds/apokteino
Summary: When Sam dies closing the gates of hell, the last thing he expects is for Dean to lose his mind and kidnap his soulmate, one FBI Agent Castiel Novak.(A sequel/coda/timestamp to With Understanding.)





	With Understanding: Sam

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N** : Yes, this is a SEQUEL/CODA/TIMESTAMP to my previous work _With Understanding_. This fic will not make sense without having read that first, and substantially spoils the first story. 
> 
> I'm currently planning about three chapters. Updates will be more sporadic than they were for the first, as I'm working on original fiction as well. 
> 
> Feedback is loved, as always, and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see - I'm still plotting this baby out. :)
> 
>  **A/N 2** : Thank you to Letzi and Lola Runs for beta'ing! You both made this so much better!

It's not like when Sam dragged Lucifer and Michael to hell. Or even, really, like the first time he died in Dean's arms, after being stabbed by Jake. 

Death is soft and quiet, and there's no lingering, no pull to remain. Sam purified himself, sacrificed himself, and he's ready. He feels like he's floating, but there's no sense of distance, of floating away from anything. Sam is Sam, without form, and he sees his life spread behind him in his wake as he suddenly begins to move. Moments flitter behind him like photographs in a breeze, happy and sad and horrific. Peace settles on him as he watches them go by. 

He sleeps.

He wakes to the sensation of someone jumping on top of him. His eyes snap open and he shouts, "What!"

Jess, her blond hair cascading around her face, grins at him. "You're early."

He stares at her, stupefied. Then, "Jess?" so small that he almost doesn't hear himself say it. 

Straddling his hips, she runs her hands through his hair, nails tickling along his scalp, then cups her hands around the back of his neck and pulls him close. She kisses his nose, then his mouth. "It's me."

Tears fill Sam's eyes, blurring the gentle smile on Jess's face. He fully sits up, but Jess doesn't move, allowing him closer. He puts his arms around her, clings to her.

Jess has been the ghost haunting Sam's dreams for eight years. Her smile, her sense of humor, all the ways she made Sam – Sam Winchester, hunter – feel safe for the first time since he left Dean behind. She made him feel like he could finally relax, finally be normal, but she was more than that too – brilliantly smart, pre-med with a minor in psychology, she saw all of Sam's quirks that were the result of his fucked up childhood and accepted them. Accepted him. She saw Sam and saw a survivor, someone that could complement her, and pulled him out of his shell. 

For three years, she was his world. His soulmate, and God, that made so much sense when Anna told him. 

The last actual time he saw her, she was dying on his ceiling, surrounded by fire. He remembers the feeling of Dean's arms around him, pulling him away, and he'd wanted nothing more than to leap into that fire and join her. 

Survival felt impossible. Even when Dean sat next to him at night, every night, waiting for the nightmare so he could comfort it away. 

She smells the same. 

How can he be turning to her for comfort? He got her _killed_. 

He shrugs off her arms, wiping his eyes. He has to say it. "I'm sorry, Jess."

She tilts her head, the movement so achingly familiar. "For what, Sam?" she asks, voice soothing.

"Jess, I'm so sorry, I never would have if –"

"You'd never have fallen in love?"

"I couldn't help that part," Sam says. "But I would have stayed away from you."

She just gazes at him for a long few seconds, but there's no anger or judgment on her face. "I know."

"The way – the way that you died –"

"I know, Sam. I know everything." She exhales, looking away, the first sign of tension. "I always wondered … The scars, the jumpiness, the way you refused to talk about your family – abuse was the obvious answer, but it never felt quite right. Partially correct, but not the whole truth." She meets his eyes again. 

Did Jess break from the memory loop in heaven when Sam pulled Lucifer and Michael into hell, or after? Sam knows that once the infighting among the angels became commonplace, portions of heaven became … uncontrolled. "I know that Anna changed things up here, let people visit each other."

Jess nods. "It's more complicated than that, but that's a start." She bit her lip. "I've thought a lot about how to say this, Sam. I think it might be better to show you." She hops off of him, and that's when he realizes they're in a room he doesn't recognize. 

Stuffed animals cover all the shelves in the room, with books huddled against the wall in a less prominent place. Wallpaper with subtle silver flowers covers everything else, and they're sitting on a four-poster bed. Photos of a girl – Jess, he realizes – are shoved into the frame of a mirror over a desk. A few photos of her parents and other family members are there, too.

Jess doesn't give him time to take in anything else. She pulls him out the door, but instead of opening out into a hallway, he sees a huge garden with towering wisteria trees and carefully trimmed grass. 

Sam looks at it all blankly. "Where are we?" 

"Our shared heaven. Call it the default setting. I've been crafting it by myself, of course, but now that you're here you'll be able to change it."

Sam looks at the horizon. It looks endless, filled with perfectly manicured trees and lawns and gardens. "How big is it?"

Jess laughs. "As big as we want it to be. This isn't a physical place, Sam." She tugs on his hand. "Come on."

"If this isn't a physical place, where are we going?"

"The couch."

"The couch?"

"For someone so smart, Sam, you're not catching up quickly," Jess says, but there's no bite to her words as she pulls him along a path. 

Sam's barefoot, but despite the path being gravel, there's no pain, not even mild discomfort. Sam ends up watching his feet move, mesmerized by the weird feeling. Then he realizes that all the little aches and pains of normal life – a papercut, the kink in his left shoulder from it being dislocated one too many times, the twinge in his lower back that Dean would only rub out when Sam complained about it too much – are gone. He literally feels no physical pain of any kind. 

Heaven. It hits Sam – he's in _heaven._

In the middle of a Japanese garden, the old couch from Sam and Jess's first apartment sits. A massive flat-screen TV seems to sprout whole from the ground beneath it, and five sets of antennae are clipped to the top of it with little bits of papers attached to them, waving in the breeze. 

Then it dawns on Sam. "You watched me."

Jess nods, the lightness falling from her expression completely. "The first thing I saw was when you came back without your soul."

Sam sinks to the ground. "The things I did …" He imagines it, Jess sitting here and watching as he acted like an inhuman monster. 

"That wasn't you." Jess looks at the TV. "Tuning into Earth – the mortal world, I guess you'd say – is hard in normal circumstance. And sometimes, in between the white fuzz when the connection would go, I'd see you in hell."

Anna took the trauma of that from Sam, the hallucinations, but the memories themselves remain. And they still resurface from time to time. And that's when Sam realizes that while all his physical aches are gone, the mental ones are still here and they still hurt more than he can stand. 

Jess curls around Sam as he cries.

\--------------------------------

"There is a price to be paid for being awake," Jess says, her voice even as she presses a hand against his forehead, smoothing back his hair. "Taking away our pain would change who we are. Trapping us in our best memories was heaven's way of getting around that problem – we could still be us, our souls would remain intact and without suffering, but we couldn't be truly conscious."

Sam lies with his head on Jess's belly, feeling her breathe, listening to her talk, and running his fingers along her knees, avoiding all the ticklish spots. He missed this. Just having Jess, having her close. All the horrors of the past eight years seem to fade away under touch, and while he knows that's not completely real, it feels like it in this moment, and he's enjoying it.

"Of course, we can still experience heaven that way if we want to. And some do. Maybe half? The rest of us have been carving our way through the heavens, making it our own. Constructing super highways between the rooms of memories the angels kept us in. They arranged us by name, you know, generally speaking. People with long lifespans or more eventful lives take up more metaphorical space, I guess, which means people like your mom and dad had interconnected heavens between them and other hunters early on. Like rooms that share walls, and sometimes you can hear your neighbor talking too loud. First hunter I met, actually, was Ellen Harvelle."

Sam sits up. "Really? She's here with Jo? I mean, of course she is, but –"

"Yeah, they're both awake. Traveling, though, looking for Bill, so I don't know where they are at the moment." Jess makes a face, stretching against the headrest of her bed. Their bed, he supposes, though this is a copy of her childhood home. "The angels know where everyone is and what's going on below, of course, but they don't answer pesky questions like that."

Sam slowly nods.

"It's not all bad, Sam. Heaven has a way of smoothing the worst parts." Jess smiles and places her hand on his cheek. "If you want them to."

"I want that. Why wouldn't I want that?"

"If you keep reopening a wound, it won't heal."

Sam blinks. "You mean watching Dean." Which he hasn't done yet.

"That's exactly what I mean. Watching you get hurt? Suffer? That's not any easier here than elsewhere. And a lot of heaven's inhabitants choose not to watch. Because you can't do anything. You're helpless. You can beg and pray, but it doesn't make a difference. You can only wait for them to come to you." Jess smiles sadly. "Like I waited for you."

Sam stares at her, throat tight and wordless. 

Jess doesn't look away. "I think you should wait. Let Dean grieve."

"Without me as an audience?"

"And unable to comfort him."

Sam squeezes his eyes shut. Shit. Shit. "Okay. But not too long. I need – he's my brother, Jess. My other soulmate, you know? Even if it's bad, I want to see it. I need to know, for whenever he does come here." So he can wrap up his brother in a hug and tell him that everything is all right. 

Jess kisses him, startling him still. "Been there, done that. Tomorrow, okay? Or whenever we let the sun set."

Sam smiles back, tremulous but real.

\--------------------------------

"This is, by far, my favorite beach," Jess says.

The beach is a tiny one on the west coast, bordered by little farms dotted with old, picturesque houses. It's nothing like the crowded beaches surrounded by expensive homes and parking lots that Sam remembers from living in California. He'd gone from one highly populated place to another, not the little towns up north like this. A swing set is the only decoration, the empty swings moving slightly in the breeze.

"You have a least favorite beach?"

"And forest. And jungle. And cabin. And palace. Okay, not that one. But places in heaven exist forever because of our memories, so you can go to a city that existed ten thousand years ago, as it was for someone who lived in it. Or," and Jess waves a hand, "Paris! I'll say that New York doesn't have quite the same presence with all the people in it being, you know, not real people."

"Wow. You've been everywhere." 

Jess laughs, kicking sand in Sam's face. "What, you think my entire post-life life revolved around you?"

"Well, no, but –"

"I met lots of people!" Jess spins, looking up at the star-filled sky. "People you knew, people I knew … my grandfather is here."

"The one who gave you all your books?"

"Yep." Her smile fades a bit. "He was sad to see me so soon. But he was glad I found my soulmate, found you, and we can still learn new things up here in heaven." Jess makes a face. "I almost didn't recognize him. He looks twenty-five."

Sam laughs. "Do I look thirty?" 

She eyes him up and down. "Twenty-six."

"You just made that up, didn't you?"

"Seriously! People look like whatever they envision themselves as."

Does that mean Sam sees himself as he was before he went to hell? That makes a disturbing amount of sense. 

Jess walks up to Sam, peering up at him under her eyelashes. It's not intended to be coquettish; it's Jess's way of signaling to Sam that she knows he's thinking about something he usually refused to share – the origin of the scars on his body or the way he would always change the subject when family came up – and he's not getting away with it this time. 

Sam shifts uncomfortably. "Just – different periods of my life," he says, knowing it sounds lame.

She tucks her hand into the crook his elbow. "You'll have to tell me everything eventually."

Relief prompts Sam to say, "We have the time, don't we?"

Jess smiles, nice and slow.

\--------------------------------

"You sure you want this now?" Jess asks.

Sam stares at the intricately carved wood double door that serves as Jess's – and his – entrance to the 'superhighway.' Letting time pass without notice with Jess has been a balm to his soul, but staying here indefinitely feels like cowardice. His family and friends are out there, and a great many of them died for him and Dean. He grips Jess's hand tighter, and finally looks over at her.

She raises an eyebrow in that familiar challenging way.

"I'm scared," Sam confesses.

"I've met your parents," Jess says. "But I've also seen your scars – not just the physical ones," and she presses her hand to his shoulder, where he'd been stabbed by a ghost in his teens; a knobby white chunk of scar tissue was the result. "Trust me, I'm not leaving you alone with your father for a second."

"Dad wouldn't hurt me –"

"Not with his fists, anyway."

Sam winces. It's true, but he doesn't want to badmouth Dad in front of Jess. He's still not even in the habit of discussing his family at all with her. "He was trying to raise two kids to survive. He was terrified of losing us. All things considered …"

"All things considered, he kept you alive but did a pretty crap job at everything else."

Sam weighs that. "You couldn't have seen that, though."

"I didn't have to. I know you. And I've certainly seen how Dean became more bitter towards him as time went on."

After John died, Sam softened towards their father. Hunting with just Dean at his side, he slowly understood the pressure that John was under and the desperate fear that underlay his actions. John didn't have anyone to share that burden with. No. That wasn't true. John didn't allow anyone else in. Bobby would have taken in Sam and Dean in a heartbeat, though as a child Sam didn't know that, or might have tried running away to him. Pastor Jim. There was also Caleb, a hunter who was a friend of John's, but even he was kept at a distance. John kept both himself and Dean and Sam from making any real connections to any of them. And Dean, trained as he was to obey without question, could easily be physical backup to John, but never emotional or even intellectual, despite Dean's intelligence. And in the end, none of John's 'precautions' saved Dean and Sam from the real danger to their lives, the angels and their agreement with the demons to break out Lucifer.

Sam might have softened towards John, but there was still some fucked up shit he hadn't forgiven the man for. 

Jess pokes a finger into Sam's side hard enough that Sam squirms. 

"What?" 

"I'm not leaving you alone, dummy."

Sam smiles, leans over and kisses her. "Are you okay, Jess?"

"Time doesn't heal all wounds on earth. There isn't enough time." She tugs him. "Well, if we're going to do this, let's go."

The superhighways are basically incredibly huge boulevards with people instead of cars. Trees as thick as a forest line either side, but the street itself is a modern, fresh blacktop about forty feet wide, filled to the brim with people of all ages, races, and time periods walking along. Every juncture, no matter how small, has a dozen signs attached to a pole. They look homemade and mismatched, some wood, some metal, some stone with hieroglyphs that waver when Sam squints at them. He focuses harder and the words shift to English.

Some signs note paths by alphabetical order with name, or by profession, and Sam even sees one that leads to 'famous people; 1200-1400'. 

"Each heaven has a sitting room now," Jess explains. "Like an airlock, I guess. So people don't have to be bothered by visitors, but can still have them if they want. An engineer came up with that one pretty early on."

Thousands of people mill around on the street. "Wow."

Jess pulls him down a path marked 'Hunters; 1980-2008, America.' 

"Dad and Mom are here?"

"Yep. They're not soulmates so they don't properly share a heaven, but feelings and memories also create connections, so they've been talking for, you know, a while."

The way that John never forgot Mary – even as his mother was nothing more than pictures and wishes for Sam – always made Sam think that they were soulmates, even before he knew that such a thing existed. Finding out that cupids had deliberately made them fall in love just so Sam and Dean could exist was a blow to that bright mental image. "Do they get along?"

"Yeah, for the most part."

Sam nods, and they walk. This part of heaven held to its theme – the path is dirt and gravel, and the separate heavens are little cabins that presumably open into entirely new spaces. Like the Tardis, except way, way bigger. 

Jess leads him to a cabin and points to the sign. _John Winchester, 1954-2006_.

Sam's heart is pounding. He doesn't wait for Jess to make the decision for him, because he knows she will – she would always push him when she thought it was a good idea. He knocks on the door. 

John Winchester swings the door open, looking slightly younger than the last time Sam saw him. He opens his mouth to say something, and then snaps it shut. The hard expression that John always wore still sits heavily on his face. John's hand slips from the frame of the door, and that hardness falls away, something achingly soft and vulnerable replacing it.

Sam's eyes fill with tears, and then John is bolting forward and folding Sam in his arms. 

"Sam," John says into Sam's ear, squeezing hard like he's making sure Sam is really here. 

"Dad – Dad –"

John pulls away first, clenching his jaw like he's trying to regain control of himself. He stares at Sam for a long second. "Sam. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, given where we left off. Come in?"

Sam wipes his eyes. "Yeah."

Jess takes Sam's hand as they walk through. Just like Sam expected, as soon as they enter the door, it opens into another space entirely. And to Sam's surprise, he recognizes it. 

One summer when Sam was twelve and Dean was sixteen, John took them both to a cabin up in the mountains. Officially it was to train Sam and Dean in wilderness survival and to increase their shooting skills, but in practice John had forced them to work on those skills in the morning, and then left them to entertain themselves the rest of the day. It was one of the few times in Sam's childhood when Dean wasn't struggling to fill in the gaps of John's absences, physical, emotional and financial, and instead they just got to spend time together as brothers. John would lock himself away doing research for God knew what, which meant they were mostly alone, but that was fine then. 

Sam always loved spending time alone with Dean.

But this? As John's heaven? "I remember this," he says to John as he walks across the familiar porch with one side sagging. 

"I thought you might," John says. 

"You locked yourself away all day. Why this time and place?"

"I watched you boys." John hesitates. "You were happy."

Shit. That hurts, in a way that Sam isn't even really sure why. He nods.

John turns to Jess. "Sweetheart," he says, then hugs her, leaving Sam blinking.

"Hey," Jess says with a fondness that surprises Sam given her last words about the man. 

John sits down on the porch bench, which is repaired, along the one that Sam remembers. He looks up at Sam. "You did a good thing, kid."

"Closing hell?"

"Damn straight. You saved a lot of lives doing that." Pride, for the briefest moments, shines, and the part of Sam that had always wanted that from his father softens. Then his father's face returns to being grave. "But Lucifer, too. I was afraid you wouldn't be strong enough."

All hope that this would go smoothly disappears, and Sam can't help but snap, "Is that why you told Dean to kill me?" 

"Would you have wanted to live as a man who helped end the world?" John asks, voice harsher.

That leaves Sam speechless for a long second. "I would have wanted to know what was going on! So I could fight it! Instead you left Dean with that – that fucking _order_ , and didn't tell us shit. And we had to find out on our own, and God, Dad, Dean died and he went to hell. Did you know? Did you know Dean was supposed to break?"

"No. Not until I was there myself."

"So what did you know?"

"I knew Azazel had done something to you. I knew the fate of the world hinged on you and your decisions."

"And you didn't trust me enough to tell me that." Not a question. It's been too many years, too many experiences, for Sam to doubt that much.

"Dean was a good soldier." _I could trust him._

Red rage fills Sam, all the peace he's tried to find with his father's actions over the past several years disappearing in an instant. He lurches forward, out of Jess's grip, and swings. His fist impacts John's face without John even attempting to defend himself, and the pain that flashes through Sam's hand and then instantly disappears is as startling as the fact he actually went and did it. After all the years of frustration and anger, he's punched his father.

John doesn't take Sam's next swing sitting. He stands and knocks aside Sam's next blow, and that's when Jess stumbles between them.

Sam stops instantly.

"Sam. Sam. I know, honey." Jess is looking at Sam, hands held up to keep them both at a distance. "Calm down."

Sam takes a breath, then looks over Jess's tiny shoulder at his father. "You – I _hate_ you for what you did to Dean."

"Dean needed to be strong."

"Strong? You fucked him up. That didn't make him strong, that made him –" That broke Dean.

"I made you two depend on each other for everything, Sam, because I knew you would need each other. I didn't go too far. I didn't 'fuck up' Dean for kicks. You wouldn't have been able to fight Lucifer to take control of your own body if Dean wasn't there, if Dean wasn't everything to you." John takes a step closer, crowding Jess, but he doesn't notice. Dark fury fills his face. Self-righteousness.

Sam wants to punch him again.

"I needed, the world needed, for Dean to do anything to save you –"

"So you told him that he could save me by killing me?" Sam spits. "That's what started this! He sold his soul! You didn't do the right thing, you did the wrong thing, if you'd given us anything close to a normal childhood he would have left me dead – he wouldn't have been manipulated into breaking the first seal and starting the fucking Apocalypse." Sam shook his head. "You're still the same self-righteous bastard you always were," he snarls. "Fuck you, Dad. Fuck you."

"I'm still your father, Sam."

Sam vibrates in place, Jess's hand on his arm. And it's that touch that grounds him, keeps him still. "No. You're not worth it." Sam looks to down. "Jess. Let's go."

Jess slips her hand into his and pulls him away.

"I … I love you, Sam," John says to his back.

Sam freezes for a second, then keeps walking.

Jess doesn't speak until they're back on the superhighway with the towering signs. "I'm proud of you, Sam."

"For hitting my dad?" Sam asks drily. 

"That part, only a little bit." Jess smiles painfully. "I meant that you walked away."

Sam squeezes her hand. "Because you were there. It just – it infuriates me, how he doesn't see what he did to Dean." He thinks of Dean begging Sam to let Dean die with him. He thinks of the promise he forced Dean to make. 

Jess doesn't reply, expression thoughtful. They head off their own path and re-enter their shared heaven. Sam sinks into a couch in the set of rooms that must be Jess's childhood home, thinking dimly about having a copy of the bunker here, but most of his mind is focused on wondering how Dean is doing. If Sam did the right thing by wanting Dean to survive and have his own life. 

Dean needed Sam in a way that Sam always saw as unhealthy. He knows that on some level Dean believes that Sam loves Dean less than Dean loves Sam, but that isn't true. And he knows the reason that Dean sees it that way is because of their childhood. Children need unconditional love to grow up as emotionally healthy adults; Sam read up enough on emotional abuse in college, and saw many of the signs in Dean's behaviors. Sam went through hell, literally as did Dean. But Sam had unconditional love from one parental figure – Dean - to get through it. 

Dean didn't. Sam was too young, and his love was for his brother. It wasn't the right kind of love.

Jess sits next to Sam, shoving her feet into his lap. He picks up one of her feet and starts rubbing her arch out of habit.

"The fact is, Sam, that both you and Dean are highly traumatized individuals."

Sam blinks at her, seeing her for the first time in who knows how long. He wants to deny it. But he can't. "Dean got the worst of it."

"Even if that's true, and I'm not sure it is, that doesn't diminish your experiences."

Dean got the worst of it as a vulnerable child, Sam thinks. "Psych 101?"

"And Sam 101," Jess retorts, shoving her foot into Sam's inside and using her toes to dig in.

"Hey, stop it – " Sam bursts into a giggle as a ticklish spot he'd forgotten he even had kicked in. "Jess!"

On some level, he knows that Jess is using humor and play as away to keep Sam from drowning in the horrors that lurk in his memories – the ones that heaven wouldn't want to touch. Or even the ones that glimmer with light as well as darkness. He remembers the touch of Dean's sure hands when he sewed up a wound, cleaned a gash, and checked for broken bones. He remembers Dean handing Sam a beer to deal with the aches of a sprained back or ankle, the forbidden-to-discuss foot massages, and all the other ways that Dean showed his love for Sam on a daily basis, interspersed with pain and death. 

It doesn't stop him from tickling Jess into submission. 

But it does keep him awake when Jess falls into the deep sleep of heaven's inhabitants, unnecessary but enjoyable.

Sam needs to let Dean go. But as long as any thin thread remains between the two of them, any hope of connection, he can't.

\--------------------------------

"I need to see him, Jess."

Jess searches his face for a long moment, and Sam can see her debating the wisdom of Sam's request in her head. Of course, Sam could get around Jess if he had to, but he respects Jess and her opinion enough not to do that. Time passes differently in heaven, as Jess said, so Sam doesn't know quite how long it's been since he died. Since he left Dean alone.

"Sam, do you really want to see how badly he's coping?"

Not really. "You kept an eye on me."

"And I regretted it, at least in part."

"Okay, I don't know if this is a good idea, but is it necessary? Hell yes." Sam lifts his chin.

Jess puts her arms around him and lays her head on his chest. The tension leaves Sam, almost unwillingly. "Soon, then."

Sam nods into her hair, hugging her tight.

\--------------------------------

The fun thing about heaven is the lack of chores. The stupid day to day stuff Sam has to do all his life – making food, cleaning dishes, laundry, figuring out finances and how to make sure he and Dean had enough to eat, or how he and Jess could afford to pay the rent and for textbooks. There's no hunger, no cold, no sleep deprivation. He and Jess can and do spend all day together, reading books, Sam studying the law as he couldn't afford to do while alive. It's still interesting, even if he can never use it now.

Music. Art. 

Still, there's an oddness to heaven once a person breaks out of their memories. The lack of pain, of course, as odd now as it was the first time. And while he can seem to breathe hard, there's really no effort to running or doing anything anymore. Even the pain of a hit is fleeting; Sam didn't give John a black eye. Not even a bruise. Jess says that some of the people here have started 'dipping' into the real flow of heaven, seeing things as angels do. Sam latches onto tiny fragments of moments or places sometimes, and he eventually decided that his hunter senses are on haywire, with some instinctual part of himself – maybe his soul, even – having an awareness of the real heaven. He wonders if someday there will be humans wandering all the corners of heaven with the angels.

Probably not. The angels seem to like humanity in their little (or not so little – Anna informed him that the parts of heaven that make up what humanity occupies is over 90% of it) corner. 

The longer Sam is here, the more his emotional pain fades into a distant memory. He can pull up every detail, and yet it doesn't hurt. The 'smoothing' that Jess spoke of. Sam is beginning to think that what's really responsible for it isn't heaven itself, but the lack of a physical body – doesn't PTSD show up as a shrinking of certain parts of the brain? He resolves to check with a neuroscientist at some point. 

It would be easy to sink into the flow of heaven, but half of Sam's soul is missing.

"A quarter," Jess corrects playfully. "Dean and I can share. You can keep half of your soul for yourself."

\--------------------------------

Sam grabs Jess's hand, sitting before the blank TV. The perpetual sunny day shines on the garden Jess created for the TV and couch, making Sam's nervousness feel misplaced.

"You ready?" Jess asks.

Sam nods.

Jess picks up the remote, fiddles with the antennae, and then clicks it on. A second later a poor quality image appears, but Sam immediately recognizes the kitchen in the bunker despite the fuzz. 

Dean is sitting at the kitchen table, alone. A beer is to his left. Four empty bottles are on the floor. A half eaten burger is front of him, as well as two or three newspapers that he's searching through, his finger following a line in one, then another line on another page entirely. He's looking for a hunt, Sam realizes, or figuring out whether what he's looking at is one. The beer bottles are worrying; at his best, Dean would only drink one a day, sometimes less. At his worst, entire bottles of whiskey would disappear.

Sam leans in. He doesn't stop watching until Dean goes to bed.

\--------------------------------

Mary Winchester has always been a monolithic figure in Sam's life. She was the cause of John's endless quest for revenge, the focus of Dean's story of better times and the father that he knew (and Sam never did), and the blunt instrument that Sam wielded against a life of hunting. How many times did he ask Dean, _Would Mom have wanted this for us?_ Asking John the same question only happened a few times, because John would leave for weeks after and come back drunk.

Dean asked him to stop, and Sam did. Mostly. The last time had been with an acceptance letter to Stanford in his hand.

Finding out after Dean's trip to the past that Mary wanted out just confirmed an instinct Sam had that normal people didn't want to live the life of a hunter. But by then, Sam was no longer normal, and it didn't matter. Only Dean and Sam, together forever, mattered.

This time, Mary's heaven is in a field of poppies with a white gazebo in the center. Colorful blankets flap in the wind, blocking out the sun, and woven wood seating and a table dominates the inside, flashes of color making it through the patterned blankets.

Sam walks over, squinting. "It's bright."

"Doesn't seem right without the glaring sun," Mary says. "Hello, Sam. Thank you for coming."

So formal. Sam nods awkwardly and takes a chair. The first time they'd met, Mary hugged him tightly, running her fingers through his hair, her palms running across his skin like she was trying to find injuries, tears in her eyes. It was hard for Sam to sit still, for as much as he always wanted his mother, her familiarity with him was overwhelming. 

His mother is a stranger to him, as much as he wants that not to be the case. He needed time, Jess said, and she was right.

Now, Mary keeps her distance, though her expression is open and waiting. "I just wanted to see you. Talk. Spend some time together."

"Of course, Mom."

"I've only had people who know you," Mary says. "Seeing you through other's people's eyes."

"Well. Same."

Mary smiles. "Is there anything you'd like to ask?"

Sam considers. "What was your life like, before us and Dad?"

And Mary tells him. She has countless stories about hunts, naturally, though not as many as Sam and Dean probably went on. She talked about growing up in the life, and it's eerily familiar – though Samuel and Deanna Campbell led a much more stable life overall, especially financially. Mary paints a picture of a being supported by a community rather than having a truly isolated childhood, with other hunters and support personnel – doctors and nurses, mainly, but also connections in law enforcement and law – having an impact on her life. 

In a way, it's what Sam's life could have been, had John trusted the hunting community more.

By the time Sam and Dean were old enough to know it was there and join it, angels and demons had decimated it. 

"Our childhood was different."

Mary hesitates, then says cautiously, "Yes. John has told me some."

"Did you watch us? In the past three years?"

For a long moment, Mary doesn't move. Then she rises to her feet and comes to Sam, kneeling before him. She tucks a lock of Sam's hair behind his ear. "Of course I did. But there are things that I think you wouldn't want me to know, and I respected that."

Is it fear of what she could find out, or respect that stopped her? Maybe both. And for all that Sam used Mary Winchester against John's leading of their lifestyle, it's not so easy to say that to her. To tell her everything. Finally, he says, "I wonder if our lives would have been different, if you had told Dad the truth about your family. The supernatural."

Mary winces. "Perhaps. He would have been better prepared, if nothing else. Better able to cope."

"And capable of respecting your wishes." Had he known them to begin with.

Mary puts her hand over Sam's. "I'm sorry."

Sam offers her a smile. "I know. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. And I'd accepted my life as a hunter, before I died. With my brother. I was happy."

Mary's shoulders release their tension, and it hits Sam that's she's afraid of messing this up. Of not having a good relationship with him. She smiles. "I'm glad, Sam."

Sam decides he has the time to tell her the whole truth, eventually. For now, it's easier to give them both time to adjust.

\--------------------------------

Sam gets to know what Jess meant by time passing oddly in heaven. The next time he checks in on Dean, almost a year has passed.

And Dean is sitting in a room in the bunker that was previously empty, and is now … not. 

Sam gets up for a closer look and recognizes the photos. Castiel Novak, FBI Special Agent, covers the walls, along with printed-out articles and casual photos that Sam is frankly not sure how Dean acquired. Empty bottles of beer, whiskey, and one of vodka litter the floor, though when Dean gets up and makes a leisurely scan out of the room, he doesn't stumble. So he's either used to the level he's drinking at, or he's just not cleaning. 

That's not a good sign. As much as Dean considered the Impala home, once he got a second one he went crazy with keeping it clean and obsessing over every water ring left by a glass. 

"I wonder what you're like," Dean muses. He takes a sip out of his beer. "Beer drinker? Or wine?" He mumbles something else Sam can't make out, and then leaves. 

Sam sinks back into the couch. Maybe Dean is considering contacting Castiel. Sam knows it would be difficult to safely get in touch, but it should be possible, especially if Dean is careful and keeps physical contact limited. Castiel doesn't know about the supernatural as far as Sam is aware, which means to him Dean is just a criminal, but when Sam passed, Castiel worked on mob cases for the FBI, not serial killers, so it's doubtful he'd recognize Dean outright. 

If Sam is honest with himself, he's not entirely sure what he imagined Dean would do after he passed. Castiel should have some kind of instinctual attraction to Dean, given how Sam reacted to meeting Jess for the first time, but the reality of Dean's life as a hunter and hunted man was always going to make that a hell of a lot more difficult for Dean to meet his soulmate than it was for Sam. 

Dying and barely able to stand, Sam had imagined Dean happy, like the precious year Sam had had with Jess.

Now, he wonders what Dean is planning on doing, exactly.

\--------------------------------

The moon hangs low over the ocean, larger than life.

Sand squishes between Sam's toes, wet from the rising tide, though the sand is so fine-grained that it almost feels like walking through slightly wet powder. Sam's never been to a beach quite like this, but as it turns out, people's memories don't always record things accurately in heaven, either, which means edits like this are possible. Fantasy worlds in heaven, Sam muses.

Jess swings Sam's arm, looking out to the sea. 

"Something wrong?" Sam asks.

"I was thinking," Jess says slowly, "while watching Dean. Why isn't he here?"

Sam closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, he realizes Jess is staring at him, and her eyes are shining. 

"I saw you die. Three times. And you never came to me. But I saw Dean, still on earth, losing his mind." Jess pauses. "He really loves you."

"I know."

"Sam. Why hasn't he killed himself? Did you make him promise, like when you dragged Lucifer to hell?"

Sam thinks of Castiel Novak, Dean's romantic soulmate, living a normal life and then having that ripped away to be Dean's new normal. "I did."

"Is he going to be able to live without you?"

"I – I don't know."

"Then why did you make him promise?" Jess asks.

Sam is quiet. "Because," he says at last, "Dean deserves to have a good life before he dies. He deserves it so much, Jess. To have more than just me."

"I don't think Dean sees it that way."

Sam sighs. "Of course he doesn't. I'm all he ever really needed. But there's more to living than needs. Is it so bad of me to wish he could have more?" Sam waves at their surroundings. "More happy memories? He has so few."

Jess snuggles in to Sam's side. "No, it's not bad. I just – you kept him sane, Sam."

"Dean's not crazy."

Jess peers up at him. "I'm not so sure about that."

Sam frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I just – I know that I don't _know_ Dean, not like you do. But I do have an outside perspective on him, especially watching him for those years along with you. He doesn't cope like you do." 

Sam thinks of Dean's drinking. His refusal to talk about things until it was about to explode in both their faces. 

"I've talked to John."

"Is that why he calls you sweetheart?" Sam teases. 

Jess punches his shoulder. "He's an old guy who's fond of his daughter-in-law, jerk."

Daughter-in-law? Yes, soulmates, but Sam didn't have time to pop the question. Although he could now, he supposes, straightening, then jerks his attention back to the subject at hand. "You talked to him about Dean, then?"

"From his perspective. Yeah. And, if what John told me is true, and I think it is, then he doesn't see it, but you're right, Sam. John fucked Dean up."

After a moment, Sam shakes his head. "Dean's not crazy. Fucked up, yeah. But he wouldn't go too far. He knows to fear that. He's told me as much." Six years ago, now, was the first time Dean confessed he was worried how far he would go for his family. 

Jess sighs. Then she leans in and kisses him. "Okay."

\--------------------------------

They flick the TV on; it's already set to Dean, as Jess hasn't caught up on her parents for a while. Jess's mouth opens. "Oooh shit," she says.

On the screen, Sam can see Castiel Novak sitting on a bed in a previously unused room in the bunker – the commander's personal room, the only one that had its own bathroom. Dean and Sam couldn't agree on who could have it, and the group shower was so freaking big that it became a non-issue once Dean figured out that half the pipes in the small bathroom needed to be replaced. 

The bed is new. So is the chain that lies mostly on the floor, connected to Castiel's leg by a cuff. 

They're staring at each other. Then Dean says something, and Castiel replies. Sam blinks. Then blinks again. "What?"

Jess points as if he hasn't already seen it. "I'm guessing that's not a normal thing for Dean to do."

If Castiel was truly dangerous, Dean would have him in the dungeon. "No. No, that's not normal. What is he _doing?_ "

Jess gets up and squints at the screen. The resolution is excellent. "It's locked to a bolt imbedded in the floor."

"Dean has his soulmate chained to the floor?" Sam knows he's asking the question just in case he's _lost his mind._

Jess slowly nods. "Yep." She turns to look at Sam, surprise and a terrible fear on her face.

"Dean wouldn't do this."

Jess silently points at the screen.

Unwillingly, Sam takes a second look at Castiel. He's wearing slacks and a dress shirt, though it's ragged around his hands and neck. When Castiel stretches, Sam can see a dark bruise across his throat – familiar, because Sam's been choked out enough times. He's seen that bruise in the mirror more than once. And that sign of violence is enough to break Sam out of his denial.

"No no no. Dean, no," and Sam gets up, pacing like a caged animal, and dammit, he is caged, he's caged here while Dean is still on earth. "Talk to him, send him a letter – shit, Dean! Fuck!"

Dean says, " _Almost two years ago now, my brother was dying. So I asked Anna – well – well what she is isn't important, but I asked her if I'd be with Sam, in heaven, you know? And she said yes, that we were soulmates, but that I had two soulmates, just like Sam. A platonic and a romantic one._ " 

Sam watches, speechless and horrified. Castiel appears to be listening fairly calmly.

" _I asked her for my soulmate's name, and she gave me yours. Castiel Novak._ "

This is all Sam's fault.

" _I mean obviously I looked you up way before that, before you were even with the BAU, but when I saw you – I can't explain it. But I knew you. I had to know you_."

Sam walks blindly away from the couch and the TV set. Jess follows, trying to grab his hand, trying to contain him, but Sam ignores her. Instead he shouts to the sky, "Anna! Anna! You can't let this happen!"

He screams himself hoarse, the pain fading almost as soon as he stops. And eventually he does stop.

"I'm sure Dean will let him go," Jess says into the fresh silence.

Sam looks at her. "You're not sure."

Jess sighs, meeting his eyes. "No. I'm not."

He swallows. He needs to think about this rationally. Okay, it looks horrible, what Dean's done – kidnapping an innocent man. But he and Sam have done a hell of a lot worse in the course of a hunt gone wrong. Desperation to get the job done, or to survive, or to save the latest victim have led them to threaten and harass innocents. This doesn't quite compare, because it's not for a case, but it does suggest that while Dean's morals are looser than most – just like Sam's, in certain regards – there's still an obvious limit. 

Sam bites his lip. "Dean never kept me against my will. He always tried to convince me to stay, when I wanted to leave, and when he was in Purgatory and he came back, he was angry that I stopped looking for him, that I gave up, but he never chained me to the floor. But then … he never had to, not to talk to me. Not to have me listen to what he had to say." He runs his hands through his hair, then rubs his squeezed shut eyes. "He said he just wanted to talk."

Is Dean telling the truth? Does Dean even know what the truth is?

Dean sold his soul to hell when Sam left him the first time. The first actual time, when there was no other hope of return. What has Dean sold this time?

Jess says nothing for a long moment. "There's nothing we can do but watch. They're still alive. They make the decisions, Sam. We can't intervene."

Sam shifts his gaze to the ever-present blue sky. "Anna could." But Jess had told him over and over that the angels ignored the requests of heaven's inhabitants.

"I turned it off," Jess says. 

"Hoping that time will slip by, and when we look next the situation will be resolved?"

Jess takes one of his hands, rubbing her fingers along his palm. "I may sound fatalistic, Sam, but I've watched you –" she chokes, and Sam finally sees tears, "I've watched you suffer so horribly. My soulmate. The man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, the man that had already suffered so much by the age of nineteen. I've raged at heaven and the angels for years, and I had to give up to save my sanity. I had to wait. Even my slice of horror doesn't compare to yours. And sometimes, I had to stop watching you."

Choking on tears himself, Sam presses his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry for putting you through all of that."

"You didn't mean to. And neither does Dean." She caresses his face. "I love you, Sam. No matter what you did or what happened to you. I love you."

Just like Sam loves Dean.

\--------------------------------

Dean doesn't let Castiel go.

Sam watches Castiel's escape attempt with a heavy heart, because he knows Castiel won't succeed – Dean is far smarter than most people give him credit for, including Dean himself, and he has the immense advantage of extensive knowledge of the supernatural. Sam knows the cuff will work. 

He turns the TV off before Castiel responds to Dean's offer – a letter in return for sharing a bed.

God, is his brother a fucking psychopath?

Rather than respond to Jess's questions, he walks to the part of their shared heaven he's been working on. During Sam's first year at Stanford, he spent a lot of time at the library – his roommates were a little unnerved by Sam's presence, mostly because Sam couldn't relax and insisted on keeping weapons in his room. After the fourth time Sam snapped at his roommates to stay the hell out of his room, they gave up on befriending him. Sam knew he was risking being expelled, but he knew what was out there, and he kept hearing Dean's voice in his head saying, _Stay alive. Who gives a shit what they think. Protect yourself at all costs._

The library was a safe place. 

Sam sinks into one of the couches, watching as shadows of people – present only from his memory – walk through the book shelves silently. 

Jess settles next to him, pulling her bare feet under her. 

"I did this."

"Dean makes his own decisions."

"I made him promise, Jess."

"You didn't want your brother committing suicide, Sam."

Sam snorts. "But I killed myself."

"No, you didn't. You didn't put a gun to your head and a bullet through your skull. You died completing a spell to lock demons away, saving countless lives in the process. You sacrificed yourself. Yes, you died, but dying wasn't the point, Sam, it was the side-effect."

Sam leans his head against the armrest.

"Can I ask a question, Sam?"

That rouses him. "Sure."

"How did you cope?"

"I …" Sam stops, pulls himself together. "I read self-help books on PTSD after Dean went to hell. I wrote narrative journals, filled out paperwork online that you're supposed to go through with a therapist. I dropped it when Dean came back, but after I regained my soul, I started again. Dean found them one day and … he helped me."

"He looked at what you wrote?"

"Some of it. He found it hard to even look at the stuff I'd write, I think because … because it was all too familiar. He never wanted to examine his own trauma, and in a lot of ways mine was similar. Hell and hell, you know. I tried to get him to do it, too, but he always refused."

"But he helped you examine yours."

Sam nods. "When I pressed it. The idea is that you have thoughts that are wrong, that aren't factually supported. I felt like a burden to Dean, things like that. So instead, you go through and write down the facts without any emotion attached to them. Dean'd, well, he'd go through it and help me with that part. He hated talking about my crappy feelings about myself, but he would, if I asked."

"That was good of him."

"Yeah. He supported me with actions, mostly. Being there. Always comforting me after a nightmare or a hallucination. Keeping me grounded. He was always good at that part."

"And you kept him grounded?"

"Yeah. We were – you know, it's weird in some ways. As time went on, I found it harder and harder to separate myself from Dean. I understood more and more why Dean couldn't let go of me, of needing me." He laughs bitterly. "When my trauma matched his, I finally got why he was so fucked up and we started needing each other more than anything – more than the safety of the world."

"But you did," Jess says, puzzled.

Sam looks at her. "Dean helped me save myself. But now … Jess. I can't do the same for him. Because I made him fucking promise." He leans in. "Can you even say it, Jess? That you think he'll let Castiel go?"

Jess bites her lip, and finally drops her gaze.

\--------------------------------

Five people huddle together in the beautiful outdoors. Couches and armchairs sit on soft grass. The TV set looms over everything, dark.

"I should have let Dean blow his brains out," Sam says, breaking the silence.

Mary rises to her feet, saying, "Sam! Honey –" and John rubs his hands together, twisting the wedding ring he still wears, muttering, "Sammy," while Bobby shakes his head at Sam.

Jess squeezes Sam's hand silently. 

"You can't change the past, Sam," Bobby says. 

Sam rubs his eyes.

Mary is sitting a few feet away from John. She takes a few deep breaths, then says, "There's nothing we can do to actively help Dean or assist Castiel in escaping. We're in heaven, and I don't see that changing. What we can do is be ready for them whenever they do arrive, and in whatever state they arrive."

Sam wonders if that's the wisdom of experience talking. Just being awake in the last three years, his mother would have seen her boys go through all kinds of hell, though not necessarily the pieces that would hurt her personally – Sam and Dean's childhoods. And she's been so good with Sam, never pushing him too far, but still trying to get him to open up and talk about his life – the good and the bad.

Jess perks up. "You mean get ready to separate them? Or, I don't know, talk to them and try to figure this out then?"

Mary nods.

"Dean's forty," Sam says. "Are we going to watch him – just watch him, for years? I can't watch my brother, my fucking brother who I've idolized my entire life, just blow right past every moral boundary and keep an innocent man prisoner!" Sam's throat tightens. "They're sharing a bed. You think that's Castiel's choice?"

Mary's face tightens.

"What if he – he goes too far?"

"Dean's not capable of that," John snaps. "How dare you, Sam. That's your brother, that's Dean."

"He did it in hell," Sam whispers, because he can't say it any louder. 

"What Dean did in hell is irrelevant. That's not who he is."

"And who do you think he is, huh?" Sam yells, leaping to his feet. "The obedient soldier? The reliable one? You abused him into being what you needed and now he can't function in the real world on his own –"

"Dean will cope."

"Dean isn't fucking coping!" Sam points at the dark TV set. "Look! Kidnapping his soulmate isn't the action of a sane man! He's –"

"Whose fault is that? You left your brother alone –"

"To save the world from demons, jackass," Bobby interrupts. 

"Dean will get it together. He always has," John says firmly. 

Sam shouts in pure fury and darts forward at John, but Jess starts pulling on his arm and Bobby rises to his feet and gets in the way. "I get it, I do, calm down," and puts his hand on Sam's shoulder, then grips the back of Sam's neck and makes Sam face him down.

Though Sam never knew it at the time, Bobby demanded that John hand Dean and Sam over to him or another responsible party when they were children. It caused a permanent rift between John and Bobby Singer, one that never healed while they were alive. Bobby has been more of a father to Dean and Sam than John ever was. He offered support, primarily, but also unconditional love. And tough love, when they needed it. If Bobby were still alive, Sam knows Dean would be okay right now. 

And if Sam hadn't made Dean promise to live, Sam knows Dean would be here.

Bobby says, "Listen to me, boy. Seein' this clearly is the best we can do. All the different moving parts of this mess."

Sam's chest is heaving. With some difficulty, he slows his breathing and, finally, he nods. 

John's staring Sam down when Bobby moves aside, but Sam doesn't lunge for him. He sits back down, Jess's grip on his arm relaxing a little. 

Mary lifts her chin. "Sam, honey. I've only seen the past few years, though I've talked to your father. And a little to Bobby. I'm sorry I missed your childhood, and Dean's, I truly am. If I hadn't made that deal, none of us would be in this mess."

Sam shakes his head. "No, Mom, this isn't your fault. You were manipulated into that. We all know how it happened, and we don't blame you." 

Mary doesn't relax. "If I had told John, or prepared the house better, I could have been there. But I wasn't. Tell me … tell me what I need to know."

Sam nods, and grits his teeth for a second before he consciously relaxes. Yeah. He needs to get at the core here, to make Mom understand. He looks at John. "The truth is, Mom was manipulated into making the deal so I'd be infected with demon blood. But no one was manipulating you into leaving us alone for weeks at a time. No one told you or forced you to not leave us with enough money, forcing Dean to steal, and God knows what else. The angels didn't command you to only give Dean love or support when he obeyed you. They didn't have you turn Dean into a soldier, stamping out everything else in the pursuit of revenge. Demons didn't make you drink. They didn’t abuse Dean emotionally, telling him he was a fuckup for being a normal teenager." Sam's voice falters. "You did that. _You_ did that. And I can never, ever forgive you for it."

Mary inhales sharply.

John meets Sam's glare. "I won't apologize for keeping you two boys alive."

"For keeping us alive? Dean kept us alive! You wasted money on beer and whiskey and ammo."

"I taught you both to fight."

"For a meal?" Sam snaps.

Mary turns to John, her expression cold. "You left them alone for weeks?"

"They had Pastor Jim if they needed help."

"How young?" Mary demands.

"Nine. Dean was nine," Sam offers quietly.

"Dean stole food?" she continues. "What else? Did he steal so our children could be clothed?"

John, in the face of Mary's fury, finally drops his head. "I felt," he says, like the words are being forced out of him, "that nothing mattered more than their survival. That meant hunting the demon that killed you. They were never going to be safe if I didn't kill that demon, if I didn't find out why it had targeted our family. Maybe I focused on that to the exclusion of all else, but it was for our boys, Mary."

Mary's eyes shine. "That's not good enough."

"It was all I had," John says.

"Then you weren't enough." 

John flinches.

Mary turns to Bobby. "Thank you for being there for my boys," she says, tone uneven. 

"Don't need thanks. I love those idjits." Bobby gives Sam the stinkeye. 

Jess claps her hand together, startling Sam. "Well. That was productive." She takes Sam's hand, smiling at him, though her shoulders are still high and tense. "So … can we … conclude that Dean has emotional issues?"

Sam stares at John, but John's head is still low. He doesn't meet anyone's eyes. 

Mary looks at Jess, then Sam. She avoids John, and for the first time Sam realizes she's furious. "How is he justifying this? Will he be able to continue justifying it?" 

Sam frowns. He's been so busy blaming himself for Dean's actions – and hoping mindlessly that Dean will just stop what he's doing and let Castiel go – that he hasn't gone that far into Dean doing this in the first place. He knows Dean needs someone to be with, someone to love and who'd love him back. But how is Dean justifying this in his head? "There's a hole in Dean," Sam finally says, "and he keeps trying to fill it. I could. If I was with him. But I couldn't – I couldn't get rid of it. I couldn't heal that wound over."

"So he's taken his soulmate prisoner to fill something inside of himself?" Mary asks.

"Dean hates himself. He did before hell, but after," Sam's lips quiver, but he gets a hold of himself, "after, it just became a way of life for him. And it didn't matter so much while he had me there to love him, but now that I'm dead, he's alone again. He's so messed up with guilt and pain that I think – I think he's thinking that he has to find someone else to love, and to love him. And Castiel is his soulmate, so he thinks that makes it right."

Jess speaks up. "But Castiel doesn't love Dean."

Sam looks at her, blinking. 

"Castiel is Dean's soulmate, yeah, of course. But it wasn't love at first sight for me, Sam. I fell in love with you after I was drawn to you, not before."

"Then …" Sam trails off. "Dean won't stop until he feels Castiel loves him."

"Which may never happen," Mary finishes. "Not like this." She puts her face in her hands. "Oh, God."

Dean's placed himself in a position where he will eternally just be out of reach of what he wants most. And even if he gets it, it will be at the cost of his soulmate's well-being.

John finally speaks up. "Dean will do the right thing. It may take him time, and it will hurt him, but he'll do the right thing."

Uneasy glares head John's way, but John keeps his eyes on the blank TV set.

"I hope so," Sam says, but there's a heavy feeling in his gut. He remembers too many moments where Dean could not accept Sam's death. Sam thought they were past that, that Dean had recovered enough to be on his own and live life. He did after Sam fell to hell, for a full year. He loved Lisa. Sam thought – had hoped – that he could do that again. 

John stands. Sam eyes him warily, but John simply goes to the TV, fiddles with the receiver so it's set to Dean again, says, "Castiel might be Dean's prisoner, but Dean's treating him well. He'll get over this, Sam," and then he turns it on.

The first thing Sam sees is Dean in just his boxers, over Castiel, and then the sinuous movements of Dean's body catches Sam's eye. Dean is – Dean is – and beneath him, Castiel's staring at the ceiling, almost like he's looking into heaven at all the bastards who didn't do enough to save Dean, face blank, eyes full of pain.

Jess leaps up before Sam can react, muscles frozen in horror, and she hits the off button and the screen returns to blissful black. "We don't – that's not for us to see," Jess says, the words barely getting out of her.

Mary begins to sob, though for who isn't clear. Sam doesn't know. 

The tears on his own face are for them both. 

John's eyes are glassy. He stumbles backwards a few steps. "Jesus fucking Christ. God – how –" 

"How? I gave you a wonderful child and you –" Mary chokes, then stands up and says, her voice low and intense, "I hate you." 

John's face is full of anguish. "I'm sorry," he croaks, and then he walks away. Might as well be running, for all he doesn't look back as Bobby starts trying to speak, as Mary cries, as Jess goes to Sam's side and tries to offer comfort, and all Sam can think is, Dad did this. But I did, too.

\--------------------------------

"This isn't your fault," Jess says, curled up to Sam's side on the bed.

Sam wishes his throat were hoarse from screaming, that his hands hurt from punching the wall. It would ground him, at least. He laughs dryly, but it doesn't hurt, and it feels like it should. "I'd say it's 50/50 me and Dad," Sam says. He thinks of Jess telling him that heaven can smooth over the worst of their memories, the scars in their minds, if allowed to do so. He keeps ripping them open, can feel himself do it every time he turns on the TV and every time he clenches his hand to stop himself. But Castiel, a man Sam doesn't even know, deserves more privacy than that, given that Sam can't actually help him.

"How do you figure?"

"Dad fucked Dean up. But I knew it, and I left him anyway." 

Jess hisses, but doesn't speak.

Sam didn't look into child abuse for a long time – mostly because he'd always seen Dean as complicit in John's behavior. On one hand, he could recognize that Dean was his primary caregiver, but on the other he constantly saw Dean justifying and defending their father's actions. Sam couldn't see that Dean did that as a coping strategy – to keep himself sane under the weight of his responsibilities. John was God, and Dean his faithful soldier, not because Dean had chosen that, but because Dean needed to find a way to survive mentally and emotionally.

If Dean was sacrificing for a good cause, then it made everything okay. He had to defend John to keep thinking that way.

Sam knew that their shared childhood had screwed both of them up. He'd researched it for Dean, trying to understand, but it really only became clear that Dean coped by defending John after John died. Trying to talk to Dean about it didn't achieve much. Dean didn't want to open up, felt it was irrelevant, or plain just didn't trust Sam. Dean would, without hesitation, put his life in Sam's hands, but he was far more cautious with his heart and mind. 

"I should've done more." 

"Like what?" Jess asks. 

"Gotten Dean therapy. For child abuse. Emotional abuse. The whole thing. I did research on it, you know, in college – not for Dean, not then, just trying to get a better grip on my childhood. But later, it all clicked for me and I saw the signs all over the place. I just couldn't get Dean to open up, and with the lives we led, I couldn't take him to a professional. Though he might have shot me and left me on the side of the road if I'd tried that," Sam says with some humor. It fades quickly. "I shouldn't have given up."

Jess nods. "I know you did research. I read it after you did."

Sam blinks. 

"You didn't wipe your browser history."

"You were looking at my browser history?"

"It was only our third date. I wanted to know what a man like you tries to hide."

"So you went into my browser history, but never found my cache of weapons under the bed?"

Jess sits up. "You had _weapons_ under the bed? I thought it was porn, or stuff about your family."

"Well, it was about my family from a certain point of view."

Jess purses her lips. "Okay, you researched it. That helped you understand, eventually, but how would that help Dean?"

"How? Jess, I knew exactly what was going on, and I didn't – I didn't do enough to address it, to make Dean feel safe and loved, to just – fucking _fix_ him."

Jess sighs. "What do they always tell girls – don't think you can change a man?"

"It's not the same thing."

"Hell yeah, it is. People don't change unless they want to. That's why forcing someone to go to therapy doesn't work."

"Are you saying that Dean is responsible for not letting me help him? Jess, that's exactly what Dad made him think he couldn't do – ask for help. Show weakness."

Jess pokes Sam's side. "I'm not saying that. I don't know, Sam. It's complicated. I just can't see you at fault."

Sam turns on his side so he can face Jess. He examines her, trying to read her. "You always know what to say."

Jess takes his hand. "You're not the only one who looked stuff up. How do you think I handled all your weirdness so well? It sure as hell wasn't by accident."

Thinking back to college, yeah, Jess had seemed to have a sixth sense about when to drop it, when to press, and when to just ask questions. She hadn't been perfect about it, but it was a large part of why Jess was Sam's first really successful relationship. Sam knew about the psychology minor, of course, and that was part of why he was so stingy with his past. Plus, Jess is smart. Really smart. If anyone would see through the necessary lies, it would be her, so Sam lied as little as possible by talking about his past as little as possible. "Didn't it drive you crazy? How I wouldn't talk to you about it?"

"Duh. I just figured I had the time to unravel you, bit by bit."

"I really am sorry, Jess. I – losing you was –"

"As bad as losing Dean?"

Jess died horribly, and went to heaven. Dean died horribly, and went to hell. And both times, Sam lost what solace he had in the world. "Yeah."

Jess's gaze goes distant. "I can remember it. I'm sure you have worse memories, but – I was traumatized when I got here. When I woke up, really. I talked to people about it. Grandpa. Ellen, before she and Jo went off adventuring. Strangers on the road. But sometimes I'd just curl in my heaven and try to breathe, try to let it go. And it did."

"Because this is heaven?"

"My pre-med instincts say maybe more than that. We're unmoored from our physical bodies here, and a lot of trauma exists in the brain. Physically, in our biochemical makeup and our brain structure."

The body Sam uses to get around feels like his own, absent aches and pains. But Jess is right – it isn't, not really. It's just a projection of what he feels like 'Sam Winchester' is, which is why there are so few old-looking people in heaven. The oldest Sam's seen was probably around forty, maybe fifty at the very most. People seem to mentally freeze their age around when they feel full adulthood was reached, and age thirty is pretty common.

He looks at Jess, studying her blue eyes and blond hair, the freckles dashed across her nose and cheekbones. "You hated your freckles," he says, brushing his thumb along one.

"Maybe I'll finally be able to make them go away," she says, smiling. 

Sam smiles back and kisses her lightly. "I love your freckles. But I hope so, too."

\--------------------------------

The worst part is that Sam can see so clearly how Dean is falling in love with Castiel. Real, deep, true love – very much like the way Dean loved Sam, just as emotionally intense, except it has a sexual and romantic component to it. Dean's always been a very sexually-driven guy, but he divorced that from emotions pretty early on. Probably by his twenties. Definitely after Cassie broke his heart.

What Dean has with Castiel is what Sam has with Jess, except for the shadow that follows them around in the form of the cuff. In the brief fights, or Castiel's quiet pleading for freedom. He never pushes it very far, other than the escape attempt themselves. 

Castiel never fully rejects Dean. Sam wonders if it's because Dean is his soulmate, or if it's because Castiel does see just how damaged Dean is. Sam can't call it diminished capacity, because it isn't, but there's a break in Dean's mind that can be patched but never fully healed, and consequences pour out of that like a water glass smashed against the ground. 

Sam left him alone with it, and Dean went to the only person he thought could save him.

And Sam can only watch helplessly.

\--------------------------------

"Hi, Mom."

Mary smiles wanly. "Sam. Would you like to come in?"

Sam just nods, and Mary steps aside to let Sam through her 'airlock,' which in this case is literally just a sitting room that Sam doesn't recognize. But of course he doesn't. Mary swaps out her airlock pretty regularly, along with the exact shape of her heaven, but it's all places she's been to. Despite their time together, he doesn't really know his mother. He knows her as John did, as a warm and wonderful woman who loved her children and her husband, but adults are rarely that simple. 

Mary leads him to an old, worn but well-loved kitchen, with a metal table and six red chairs clustered around it, and then past that into a comfortable living room with huge couches with a rose pattern on them. Sam sinks into one, and flails for a second as it almost swallows his huge frame whole.

Mary grins at him, and takes the armchair. "A bed and breakfast I once stayed at," Mary says without Sam asking. "On a hunt, actually."

Sam nods, regaining his equilibrium. 

"So why are you here?"

"Just visiting."

Mary smiles at him. "No, you're not."

"Mom, I –"

"You're wrapped up in your soulmate who you lost far too early. I understand why you've spent so much time with her. And, Sam, we do have time. Nothing but that."

"I do want to get to know you. Really know you, Mom."

"Same here." Mary looks down. "Is this about Dean?"

Sam rubs his dry eyes. "Isn't everything?" 

Mary's mouth tightens.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

"You're emotionally exhausted."

"Aren't you?" Sam asks.

Mary looks away. "I've been here longer than you. I've had the time to come to terms with … most things."

There's a wealth of secrets in those words.

"John and I met each other first. It was –" and here, Mary lifts her head, eyes staring past the ceiling to somewhere else, "strange, to see him as he was. As he is. I demanded answers immediately, of course, about what had happened to you and Dean, but he spoke of you in general terms, most of the time. Specific memories, happy memories, he could replay those for me at will in his heaven, and he did. I got to see you boys grow up through his eyes."

In part, Sam thinks, wondering why she's bringing this up now.

"I could see why he raised you as hunters, even as I hated it so much. John figured out far quicker than I did that what had happened to our family wasn't bad luck. That there was a greater plan, and not all of the pieces had been played yet." She closes her eyes. "But there were missing pieces. Missing years. And I grew to see that the man that I had loved so deeply that I made a deal with a demon for no longer existed. A stranger stood in his place, loving me out of habit."

"Mom –"

"We're not soulmates, John and I, and we never would have fallen for each other without intervention." Mary turns to Sam. "But you and Dean? That bonded us. We love you so much."

"Dean, when he would talk about life before the fire, he said Dad was so different. Happy. Playful."

Mary nods. "Especially with Dean. You were so small. But he would hold you for hours, to let me sleep, smiling at you softly, and I thought no matter the troubles our marriage had, that love for our sons would keep us together. I am – I am so angry at him, Sam. For failing you both." Her eyes fill with tears. "How could I love someone who could do that?"

That hits Sam like a blow to the gut.

Mary nods, seeing it, and Sam realizes that was the entire point. "People change, Sam, because of trauma or other reasons. I think trauma led John astray. Tore all balance from his mind and left him with nothing but revenge. And he has let himself drown in that, willingly."

"You think that's what happened to Dean? That – my death was just one thing too much? And now he's just letting himself drown?"

Mary shrugs. "I don't know. But love is a constant choice. So is forgiveness."

Sam blinks. "Did you – have you actually forgiven Dad?"

"No. But someday I will. Living with this anger for eternity isn't any kind of heaven." Mary meets Sam's eyes. "And that's what I want you to remember."

Sam's breath is shaky, but he nods. "You're right."

"I will say this. John needs to understand what he did before I can forgive him enough to let him stay in our lives."

And does Dean understand what he's doing? Sam doesn't think so. If Dean did, he would stop. Because at his core, Dean is a good person, albeit one capable of so much wrong. "Same here."

Mary rises to her feet. Sam does the same, and he falls into her arms like it's the most natural thing in the world, and perhaps it is, for him to find comfort in his mother. Despite her smaller frame, it feels like she's holding him up, and he wonders what his childhood would have been had John died on the ceiling that day. Would Mary have dealt with the broken cupid mark better? Would he and Dean have been strong enough to survive the apocalypse? Would Sam have been strong enough to overcome Lucifer's control and pull him into hell, if Dean hadn't been his entire world?

Maybe. Dean was his soulmate, after all.

Mary's hand smoothes back Sam's hair as he huddles into her shoulder. "I love you, Mom," and now he means it in a way he couldn't before.

"I love you, too, Sam," and those are words and a feeling Mary has felt down past her bones and into her soul for over thirty years.

\--------------------------------

Sam curls up on the couch and watches, the remote clenched in his fist.

" _Dean, I don't want to hurt you. I don't. _" Castiel. " _Just let me go – I won't tell anyone where you are. Let me go._ "__

__" _I can't_ ," Dean says, and brings up his tire-iron._ _

__Sam bolts forward, heart hammering in his chest, but all he can do is kneel in front of the TV set, hand pressed to the cold screen. He watches as Castiel fights a bloody battle to overpower Dean and escape. He watches as Castiel takes blow after blow without giving up. He hears Castiel beg._ _

__He sees the anguish in Dean, as sharp as the mingled grief, horror and denial when Sam died. That's what Dean thinks is happening here: he's fighting for his life. But he doesn't accept that he's beating an innocent man in order to save his own, and to see Dean go this far hurts. Sam saw the first escape attempt, but not the second; he only saw it referenced. Spoken about, in between Castiel's healing bruises._ _

__Castiel lets loose a sob. " _Don't do this to me_ ," he begs his soulmate._ _

__" _I'm sorry, Cas._ " _ _

__Hot tears roll down Castiel's temples. He keeps struggling. " _Please don't do this_ ," he begs again, voice wavering._ _

__" _Stop fighting me_ ," Dean demands. " _Cas, I don't want to hurt you, just stop!_ "_ _

__Sam closes his eyes, hearing the struggle and hoping this is a fight Dean loses. How else can Dean's soul be repaired? Dean can never heal while he damages his soulmate and his own soul to fill that void in his heart._ _

___"I love you, Cas. I love your fight, I love how strong you are, but I need you here. Please put it on._ "_ _

__Click._ _

__Sam hears it, then turns the TV off. Did he really expect anything else? Dean is dangerous. Dean's always been dangerous._ _

__Castiel is much more of a mystery to Sam._ _

__Sam wishes – well. No. He wants to know Castiel. He knows that in theory he'll most likely get the opportunity. Castiel will have the choice not to share a heaven with Dean, and frankly at this point Sam can't imagine anything else happening – he's only told Jess, privately, that he thinks Dean is going to die in a shoot-out or Castiel will kill him or Dean will kill himself, but there's a certainty deep in Sam that Dean is going to die horribly – but if Castiel is in their shared heaven even momentarily, he will share that space with Sam as well._ _

__Sam gets up and walks through the boulevard, thinking about what he does know._ _

__Castiel is quiet and formal. That makes him very, very hard for Sam to read, especially at a distance._ _

__Sam can't imagine another FBI agent acting as Castiel does around Dean – with so much understanding. With an odd kind of grace. Perhaps that is the key to understanding Castiel Novak._ _

__In contrast to Dean, Castiel is a man who has a firm mental and emotional foundation that is slowly, achingly, being torn down. He is capable of immense empathy while still (struggling) to retain boundaries. And this is the man who has offered and given Dean comfort, physical and emotional, even as Dean was holding him prisoner and beat him bruised and bloody three times. Sam cannot even begin to count the other crimes, legal and moral. Moral. Sam wonders if he will see Dean again, if the goodness of Dean's soul and actions can balance the evil he's doing now. Sam started the apocalypse, though, and he still ended up in heaven._ _

__Sam would never wish for Dean to return to hell, though. No matter what Dean did. Rape. Murder. Dean does not belong there._ _

__He never did._ _

__Does Castiel believe that?_ _

__

____

\--------------------------------

Sam feels like he's walking towards a device of torture every time he goes to the couch and that innocent-looking damn TV.

Jess follows him, her loud steps disapproving. 

He fiddles with the antenna, shifting it from one of Jess's parents to Dean; the nametags make it easy to know which is which. Then he joins Jess on the couch and turns the screen on.

It's dark. Dean is sleeping, curled around a slumbering Castiel. 

Disgust and relief war in Sam – it's cute, almost, but it can only ever be almost because Sam knows Castiel isn't there willingly. _Maybe_ , in some way, Castiel is in that bed willingly, but Sam can't be sure of that. He's not sure if even Castiel knows. He's seen enough conversations between the two of them to understand Castiel's deep confusion over any affection he feels for Dean.

"We should go," Jess says.

Sam twitches. "It's nice to see them at peace for once."

Jess eyes him, then turns to the screen. "I wonder if it's weird for Castiel to be the little spoon."

Sam thinks about it. He's never had to worry about that, not with his height, but at six feet Castiel's by no means small, even if he is slightly shorter than Dean. "Probably."

Dean mumbles something, jerking his limbs, though he's clearly still asleep. A second later, his mumble turns to a moan, and Sam recognizes it now for what it is: a nightmare. Dean's breathing gets more rapid as he's pulled deeper into whatever hell he's experiencing, and that's when Castiel sits up, with no sign that he even had to wake. Castiel turns onto his back, throwing the blankets off of both of them and then knocking on the wall above Dean's head. 

" _Dean. Wake up_." A louder knock.

Dean bolts upright. " _No – shit, fuck!_ " all pour of his mouth in the second it takes him to fully regain consciousness. He turns to Castiel, though Sam can't make out the expression on his face. " _Sorry._ "

" _There's no need to apologize_ ," Castiel says quietly. " _Are you all right?_ " 

Dean visibly hesitates. " _Yeah. I'm okay. Thanks for waking me_."

Castiel nods. 

After a second, Dean's chin falls. Castiel doesn't move, not even to mess with the shirt and boxers he's wearing, a nervous habit Sam's seen in the few moments that Castiel allows himself to express it. There hasn't been much of that lately. Depression hangs over the bunker like a fog so thick it's visible from fucking heaven. Dean drags Castiel from activity to activity, but it doesn't help.

It hurts Sam to see. He knows what that feels like, not wanting to even get out of bed. 

Castiel, moving very slowly, puts his hand on Dean's knee. " _Are you sure?_ "

Just as slowly, Dean puts his hand over Castiel's. " _I love you._ "

Castiel winces, but Sam doesn't expect his next words. " _Come here. You're still shaking._ "

Dean rubs his eyes, looking like he's about to refuse from the huff of air that he lets escape, but then he shifts closer to Castiel, and Castiel gently guides him so that Dean's head is in Castiel's lap. Castiel begins scratching Dean's scalp, and Dean sinks into him with a moan of pleasure this time. 

Sam's throat closes up. It's – it's sweet. 

" _I don't deserve this_ ," Dean says, quietly enough it's a strain to hear.

For a long minute Sam thinks Castiel won't reply. Then he says, " _Yes, you do._ "

Sam's breath hitches. _Thank you, Cas_ , he thinks. 

He and Jess sit there silently as Dean and Castiel do, even as they get up, Dean gets a glass of water for himself and one for Castiel, and then they rearrange the blankets and get back in bed, where Sam knows they'll stay until dawn. And then Dean will get up, drag Castiel out of bed and sit him down at the kitchen table, watching his soulmate in order to make sure he eats. Dean will take Castiel on a walk, or a run. He'll make tea, and a plate of cheese and fruit. He'll do everything that Castiel needs except the most important one. 

Castiel will probably come out of the depression. He's strong, if breakable. Strong enough that he can offer Dean a caring touch when he deserves the exact opposite.

"Sam?"

Sam shuts out the screen, putting his hands over his face. Then he looks at Jess, smiling and trying to repress the tremble in it. "I like him. Castiel."

Jess nods, putting her hand on Sam's cheek.

"He sees Dean. Really sees Dean. I know that's no excuse for anything Dean is done, and it probably won't help this turn out horribly, but – he sees Dean clearly."

"The good and the bad?"

Sam inhales. "Yeah."

Jess takes the remote and turns the screen off. 

"I can't help him, Jess. But I can give him one thing."

Jess tilts her head.

"Privacy. Castiel wouldn't – he wouldn't want us, anyone, to see this. To see what he's going through." And Sam knows that now that Castiel has surrendered to the pressure he's under, that the sexual elements to his relationship with Dean will only continue. Just that moment, that horrifying moment with Jess, Mom, Dad and Bobby was enough that Sam fears turning on the TV. No one should have that broadcasted to strangers.

Dean is different. Their lives were so closely intertwined that nothing remained a secret between them for long. But Castiel …

"I think that would be for the best."

Sam nods, wipes his tears, and leaves with her. 

He thinks of what his mother said. _But there are things that I think you wouldn't want me to know, and I respected that._

Were this not heaven, the grass would grow tall and wild around the TV set while Sam stays away.

\--------------------------------

Jess bursts through the doorway to Sam's in-progress massive library, her face flushed.

"What is it?" Sam asks, dropping a book, his own heart beginning to race. 

"Castiel escaped."


End file.
